New user experience -- suggestions thread

[Hank]

Hello everyone,

We're looking to improve the experience that a new user has when they first sign up on the Guild. I'm not going to sugarcoat it -- right now it's pretty lackluster. Introduction threads receive very little attention from the rest of the userbase and (other than an automated PM with a a few links and a warm greeting) newcomers are left to figure everything out on their own.

The staff has already discussed a few ideas in order to incentivize users to greet and lend aid to the newcomers but we'd also like to hear what the community has to say about it. You'll be the ones that are going to do most of the heavy lifting, of course.

One of the more silly ideas was to add a new counter just below the post count, something along the lines of "newcomers welcomed", so you can (publicly) keep track of how often you've discharged your Samaritan duties.

Another idea is to more officially appoint a squad of 'mentors' (call them what you like) whose task it is to extend a helping hand to new members, which they are free to accept or decline. Should a new user feel the need to have a veteran show them the ropes, a mentor would stand ready to provide such a crash course and to answer any questions.

Everything is in its infancy, of course, and Mahz is currently very focused on the back-end of the Guild. My hope is that we, together, can come up with a solid plan of attack to improve the new user experience and create something workable for him to implement.

Thoughts, y'all?

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

Another idea is to more officially appoint a squad of 'mentors' (call them what you like) whose task it is to extend a helping hand to new members, which they are free to accept or decline. Should a new user feel the need to have a veteran show them the ropes, a mentor would stand ready to provide such a crash course and to answer any questions.

@Hank

This has my vote as the most expedient, efficient means to do so. They might not be "moderators", but they are in a way seasoned, trusted members who can answer basic questions and provide an overview of how to interact with the Guild. However, the next following suggestion - that is far less tame and more complicated - is the following;

New users have a brief tutorial set of things they need complete before they access the "real" Guild. A sort of "step by step" series of pages that highlights everything. It shows them where it is located, talks about what it does, who the usual audience or function is, and then allows them to move on after viewing it. For example, something along the lines of...

"[Free] is the most open of roleplaying sections, known for its rapid responses, active and trending topics, many users and minimal posting requirements. In short, if you just want to jump in and roleplay without too much effort, this is the best place to start. Remember, that you might have to submit a character to the [Game Master], especially if the game isn't [Jump-In]."

[NEXT] Okay, what's next in the Tutorial?
[PAUSE] I have some questions about the Free Section...

Those bracketed sections in the text could have tooltips that give brief descriptions of what each is. The buttons below? Other than "Next", there's something like "Pause" which would allow a user to contact the list of mentors, more or less creating a pop-up and instant messaging any of them who are online, hopefully to gain a swift response; something of an audio and or banner cue, saying...

"[@Newkid101] has questions about "Free Section". Respond? [YES] [NO]."

In essence a help ticket, something that could be implemented for moderator responses as well - if it hasn't already been done.

A bit elaborate, but I think it a fair concept.

[SilverRain]

How about a 'Newbie RP' area? Brainstorming here, so this needs to be tweaked. Essentially, a free for all, do whatever you want forum stickied/tacked onto the Introductions forum. It's aim is to bring out the RPer in newbies and get that engine running. Everyone here has very few posts - it's to make them comfortable and not be daunted by those with 1000+ posters. Easy-to-join threads for Free/Light, Casual/Medium-length and Advanced/Long-length. Eventually, those who have gotten themselves comfortable can start to check our real RP forums. Caveat: we might get a huge clump of newbies becoming oldbies staying in the new section. It could be a very general thread idea like "You come to a door, what do you do?". I have no idea how to handle the diversion of plots within however, so build upon this or take it apart. :)

-------

A tangent that might also help in the onboarding:

On an old forum I visited, I was very motivated by the leveling system they had. 10 points = Soldier, 50 points = General and so on. I was no longer the newbie with 5 posts. I was someone reaching the Soldier rank. So I talked and participated more. It helped develop my forum's persona instead of letting me waste away in silence. The cherry on top was that our ranks were colour coded and had picture associated with it - like those strips you see on the Navy's shoulders. The visual picture element meant that we could instantly see each other's ranks. It was a fun rank - nothing competitive.

Other smaller ideas was a points system where you could use your post count to buy armor. It was just text. E.g. Under my name, I had the equipment of kitty ears for 20 points and evening gown for 50 points. It was more boring, but some of us like the cosplay element.

[BrobyDDark]

I think the mentor system would require the guild to have more features/more complex features. Everything is pretty straightforward already with the different sections, what with all the roleplaying sections having solid explanations on what kind of roleplays go on there. I like the idea of the points system @SilverRain had, but bribing people to help almost feels shallow.

I think online communities are hard to get into- unless you already have friends in that community, it's very difficult to start meeting new people, especially when the only ways to do so is post an introduction thread and hope somebody responds, or join a new or old rp and pray to god you keep interest/it doesn't die after you join/people take enough of an interest in you to actually start a conversation with you.

So what if the mods ran a large game of "You Are Your Avatar" or something similar, for the entire community? Make veteran roleplayers or well-known members of the community sub-GMs if they want the job, and have them encourage new members to join the game and meet some new people. With the entire community invited to come, there's bound to be loads of people for newbies to meet, and since You Are Your Avatar doesn't require a whole lot of thought put into it, I'd say it's a good introduction for newbies into roleplaying.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

I have never heard it phrased as, "You Are Your Avatar" but that is an interesting concept in general. I am sure it has been carried out here before on the Guild, or at least I imagine it had to have been or even still is, but that might work for the otherwise "shy" and unfamiliar roleplayer. Especially if you see something beneath a user's name along the lines of "Veteran" or the previously mentioned "Mentor" role, @BrobyDDark.

[BrokenPromise]

I think all of the social rollplayers moved to discord. Look at the off-topic and roleplay discussion sections? They aren't very lively either. It's not that people aren't talking about roleplays or off topic stuff anymore, it's just that these discussions are being held on discord. I think the more social users like the "junkfood," rapid fire nature of discord more than the forum for chatting, which is why only the RP sections seem to be thriving.

If you want to get new users in touch with the forum, it might be better to direct them to the discord server instead of encourage them to make an alkward hello post that few people will bother reading. Otherwise, find a way to bring discussion back onto the forum. But I haven't been on many forums with an active chat that have managed to do that.

I also agree that giving people "brag points" is a shallow, but a potentially effective way to get people more active on the forums. I'm also all for the "be your avatar" game, as that seems like something that's easy to participate in and doesn't require the same level of devotion as say an RP.

[Frizan]

If a "Newbie" forum is ever implemented, I don't think it would hurt for a blurb to be stickied at the top that encourages sociability. Something that explains that while perhaps not everyone on the Guild is looking to be your friend, they all do share a hobby with them: writing. The Guild is a place to write and talk about writing; styles, past/current/future projects, etc etc. So they shouldn't be shy about just going out and throwing out their ideas. Ah, of course, don't forget to reserve part of the blurb for the usual stuff about accepting and giving good criticism.

[BrobyDDark]

I have never heard it phrased as, "You Are Your Avatar" but that is an interesting concept in general. I am sure it has been carried out here before on the Guild, or at least I imagine it had to have been or even still is, but that might work for the otherwise "shy" and unfamiliar roleplayer. Especially if you see something beneath a user's name along the lines of "Veteran" or the previously mentioned "Mentor" role, @BrobyDDark.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Having specified "veterans" whose jobs are to run these games would be good and might make new users more comfortable roleplaying with them, but mentors are...kind of redundant. I've always viewed roleplaying communities as a large group of "mentors" for new roleplayers, though they may not know it. I believe writing skill gets better through experience and viewing other forms of writing, maybe in different forms of media beyond books. It definitely helped me, seeing how other people on this very forum write out how their characters work, inside and out, when I was a newbie and didn't really understand how to write descriptively when describing my characters. But, that's anecdotal evidence, so do with that what you will. Should it turn out true for most, then the mentor role is ultimately useless, having no need to help new people navigate an already straightforward site, and having no reason to mentor new roleplayers when all they need is a push.

I agree that having kind, helpful users with a specialized title around to help newcomers be more comfortable on the site would be a good idea, so long as they're not there solely to teach. Answer questions, yes. Mentor, no.

[Dion]

One of the more silly ideas was to add a new counter just below the post count, something along the lines of "newcomers welcomed", so you can (publicly) keep track of how often you've discharged your Samaritan duties.

Queue me spamming in the introduction threads to get that count up to stroke my e-penis even harder than the current post rating system does.

Perhaps more seriously, this isn't a bad idea but I don't really feel like this would incentivize people. It'd be fun once, twice, maybe ten times, but then the novelty of the counter wears off and people will fall back to not welcoming people.

Another idea is to more officially appoint a squad of 'mentors' (call them what you like) whose task it is to extend a helping hand to new members, which they are free to accept or decline. Should a new user feel the need to have a veteran show them the ropes, a mentor would stand ready to provide such a crash course and to answer any questions.

Queue people getting pissy for not being selected, queue people with the mentor rank going AWOL, etc. If you're running this community style there needs to be some sort of minimum activity level. Otherwise, it will probably end up like RPGN for example, where people do the job for a week or 3 and then end up not getting gratification out of it.

But it's not a bad idea. But then is the question, who are you going to recruit? Great roleplayers? Or friendly people, that might not be as good at roleplay? That'd depend on what you're looking to achieve - help them learn the ropes of roleplay, in which case there are plenty guides already, or help them feel welcomed, which in fairness probably doesn't need an entire rank of it's own just to do that.

On an old forum I visited, I was very motivated by the leveling system they had. 10 points = Soldier, 50 points = General and so on. I was no longer the newbie with 5 posts. I was someone reaching the Soldier rank. So I talked and participated more. It helped develop my forum's persona instead of letting me waste away in silence. The cherry on top was that our ranks were colour coded and had picture associated with it - like those strips you see on the Navy's shoulders. The visual picture element meant that we could instantly see each other's ranks. It was a fun rank - nothing competitive.

This is probably my favorite idea. A forum I went to did something similar (forums.taleworlds.com) where the ranks went from peasant to grand master knight. It was calculated by hours spent online instead of posts to prevent spam. So you'd have to have almost a year of daily usage of the forum in relatively reasonable doses to get grand master knight. It came with interesting images to represent that rank, and to me it felt like a real good initiative to get people to spend time there and be active.

The grandmaster knights were also often respected members of the community and generally pretty nice people (until I became grandmaster knight, ofc). It gave me a pretty good reason to be active there, because I looked up to these guys and wanted a nice looking lance to go under my name.

But then this isn't really linked to welcoming new people, so I don't know if this is particularly helpful for the issue at hand.

[SilverRain]

I like the idea of the points system @SilverRain had, but bribing people to help almost feels shallow.

BrobyDDark

Oh, I meant the points system would be applied to everyone, including newbies. It's just an incentive for them to become more active before the excitement dissipates. :)

The grandmaster knights were also often respected members of the community and generally pretty nice people (until I became grandmaster knight, ofc). It gave me a pretty good reason to be active there, because I looked up to these guys and wanted a nice looking lance to go under my name.

Budda

Thanks - it's titles like Grandmaster Knight which makes me want to become more of a member. The time spent online as a measure sounds good too.

[ScreenAcne]

@Hank

Just going to throw an idea out there.

Tag recommendations

When new users join they tag what they like in RP genre and level= sci, casual ectr- and when you're on your own account page it recommends thread RPs, including new users with the same interest or level as you. You know, like how steam games recommends stuff to you on the tagging system.

Alot of the time I don't see new users or threads simply because I don't look. More so out of tiredness, being distracted or just being away. Having stuff recommended helps people who might miss a thread due to their own lack of scrutiny, stamina, time zone ectr and is cool because even if you find threads just fine. This random system might make you just make you curious because "hey. What has this thing linked me today"

how many people would reply to something on this just out of boredom alone. I know on a slow day sometimes I just sit with the page open. Too undecided to pick an RP and you're brain in that pickled state of boredom where you can't create anything you like so you find it hard to make a character sheet or game yourself.

Hell. People have "about me" pages where they list genres and skill level they like anyway. Might as well officiate it and literally let them tag their own profiles into it. Like "recent users with the your interest" tags section or some shit.

[Hank]

Thanks for the feedback so far.

Many of these ideas involve highly complex and expansive systems that Mahz would have to code into the Guild. Stuff like that is entirely possible in the future but for the time being I'm looking for ideas that a) we can implement much more easily, preferably with as little pressure on Mahz as possible and b) get the community itself involved.

[ArenaSnow]

+1 for the mentors system and some other system to integrate new roleplayers into roleplays.

[Mao Mao]

It would be interesting to play the "You Are Your Avatar" game. Sounds a whole lot of fun.

[Vashonn]

One thing that I noted right away, when I had first joined, was how little activity the Introduction board recieved, so I purposefully never bothered to create an intro for myself, and instead clutzed around 'til I found some sort of RP that I felt I could enjoy being a part of, and started my RP career from there. Perhaps, to an extent, this limited my ability to really connect with a wider range of members, but I can also attribute that to my own lack of wanting to talk to people

As someone who blundered in here one day, not entirely sure what to expect, I can definitely say I was rather intimidated by the users around me who had 1000+ posts under their belt, as well as 500+ days, which did kind of make me feel exceptionally "newbie" with my 0 days and 3 posts. I hadn't recieved much of a "welcome" (from my own lack of wanting to introduce myself, but again, whats the point if I'm going to recieve 1 response, 3 at best?) and felt distanced due to my lack of experience. Perhaps this could've been curbed if I was given more opportunity to interact with veterans, since at the time I wasn't aware of the Discord, and the Chat was gradually dying.

However - one thing that I have to note is that I had to put in the effort to get people to recognize my username (even if there are only a few who do), which I did feel was rewarding, rather than having all these friends handed to me upon my logging in for the first time. There is still a respect I hold for more veteran members, especially those who have been around since (pre)Guildfall, which has grown as I've gotten to know some of them. Moreover, as a new user, the insentive for me wanting to stay on this forum was how much I friggin' love to write, not whether or not I could get my name out there and make as many friends in as little a time as possible.

Giving new members the means of learning their way around the site doesnt entirely seem necessary, to me, given how (relatively) basic the format is and how I picked it up in probably under ten minutes. Same with the actual act of roleplaying - I just had to look at a couple of other RPs, as well as the guides we have already, and I felt like I was good to go, with the exception of learning some of the more complex number systems, and such.

Getting the community involved with the newbies is something that would take a good deal of effort, and a means of gratification, beyond the satisfaction of bein' a cool guy. Then again, maybe it wouldnt, so long as we can get enough attention drawn to the issue and enough action being taken by the community as a whole.

I don't really have much suggestion as for what we should do, though I do like some of the point system concepts that have been thrown out there. Just my two cents on the matter.

[Host]

Hello everyone,

We're looking to improve the experience that a new user has when they first sign up on the Guild. I'm not going to sugarcoat it -- right now it's pretty lackluster. Introduction threads receive very little attention from the rest of the userbase and (other than an automated PM with a a few links and a warm greeting) newcomers are left to figure everything out on their own.

The staff has already discussed a few ideas in order to incentivize users to greet and lend aid to the newcomers but we'd also like to hear what the community has to say about it. You'll be the ones that are going to do most of the heavy lifting, of course.

One of the more silly ideas was to add a new counter just below the post count, something along the lines of "newcomers welcomed", so you can (publicly) keep track of how often you've discharged your Samaritan duties.

Another idea is to more officially appoint a squad of 'mentors' (call them what you like) whose task it is to extend a helping hand to new members, which they are free to accept or decline. Should a new user feel the need to have a veteran show them the ropes, a mentor would stand ready to provide such a crash course and to answer any questions.

Everything is in its infancy, of course, and Mahz is currently very focused on the back-end of the Guild. My hope is that we, together, can come up with a solid plan of attack to improve the new user experience and create something workable for him to implement.

Thoughts, y'all?

@Hank

I wouldn't put it under the post count; I think it's crammed with enough information as is. On the profile, sure, but that seems a little trivial to display front and center.

[NuttsnBolts]

Something I may point out is the welcome PM that every new member receives:

Welcome PM

Welcome to the Roleplayer Guild!

We are an ever-growing community of enthusiastic and dedicated play-by-post roleplayers that cater to all genres and playstyles - fantasy, sci-fi, romance and even tabletop & nation roleplays. First founded in 2007, the Guild has been the go-to forum for thousands of members since its inception. We sport an easy-to-navigate forum layout and a plethora of nifty features implemented specifically to improve the roleplaying experience.

• Feeling a little overwhelmed? It is highly recommended that you read the New User's Guide, which explains the various purposes of our different subforums and is full of useful links & information.
• Please familiarize yourself with the Fundamental Rules of the Guild. Don't worry, there aren't many.
• The Guild is currently undergoing development. Features that are missing will be implemented in the future and existing functionality will keep improving. Keep an eye on Mahz's Dev Journal to stay up to date with the changes.
• Last but not least, the Introduce Yourself subforum is a great way to introduce yourself to our community and make a good first impression. Also be sure to check out the Guild's Chat where our members frequently hang out.

We hope you enjoy your stay at the Roleplayer Guild.

Yours sincerely,
The Roleplayer Guild Staff

The question I have for you guys is do you also feel that this helps with a new user experience and perhaps should we update it with some details on the site?@Vashonn was kind enough to mention that he never really bothered with an intro post due to a lack of activity, so even before we get a chance to interact with the newbies is there something we can do to encourage them to engage in the community as opposed to hiding behind PMs and the usual lurking tendencies.

[BrokenPromise]

well yes. I feel that the guild chat should redirect to the discord instead of the dead, retired chat system. I would also remove the bit about posting in the introduction thread all together. you want new users to get the impression the forum is a happening place, which is why it is important they see a lot of activity right away. If we can't get the community into the welcome section, bring the new users to discord.

Speaking for myself, I've never been a huge fan of the welcome sections anywhere. Regardless of what I wrote, I'd mostly get people posting some variation of "welcome to X!" when what I really wanted to see was that someone shared a few of my interests. I entered the community on the roleplay discussion part of the forum. Which is kind of sad, because it's mostly dead and I wouldn't have likely stuck around if that part of the forum had such low activity.

As far as why I don't personally go to the welcome part of the forum? Because of the risk/reward ratio when dealing with new users. very few of them know how to write an introduction post. "Hello, In case you can't read above my avatar, this is my username. I like rollplaying, and I want to write with you soon." I really don't want to be one of those "Welcome to RPG!" people, but I'm usually not given much to work with. So I just avoid it.

This is why I think the "you are your avatar" game that broby suggested is great. I get to act like an idiot and get kudos for it. It's relatively simple and easy to join in on. No one person has to be the babysitter, the community can take turns humiliating themselves in front of the new guys. The discord chat is okay, but not everyone is going to feel comfortable jumping into a chat server with all those random people. An avatar game lets everyone hide their identity a little bit while doing what the site was designed for: rollplaying.

I know we're not really looking for stuff for Mahz to do, but profile pages could be tweaked a bit. It would help if there were several sections to fill out with various interests. I realize new users can do that with the bio section, but having various fields kind of gives new users hints as to what they should be writing. I'm not going to lie, quite a few people I recruited for my Danganronpa RP I acquired just by striking up a conversation about Danganronpa with people that had avatars from the game. I think people would be more likely to have conversations with new users if they knew what their interests were.

[Wadesauce]

Hello. I'm a new user as of a few days ago, and speaking from a newcomers perspective, the greetings haven't been that warm to be honest. Besides a couple hollow feeling greetings in the introduction thread, I've yet to hear back from many users. I've sent so couple PMs, and have stated interest in several games only 2 of which seem to have gained any traction.

One of the things that I'm struggling with, and maybe this is my impatience, or maybe this is a problem that could somehow be adressed is that I've been active on these forums for 2 and a half days roughly, and still have yet an opportunity to post IC.

Maybe it's a lack of my skills finding a correct game, but it seems everything moves really slowly.

I want to start IC roll playing bad enough I almost want to GM my own game at this point, but I should really get a handle on playing and learning all the lingo first, as I'm brand new to play by post.

I like the mentor idea.

[Hank]

@Wadesauce That's inherent to play-by-post, in my experience. It takes days (sometimes even weeks) to recruit players, submit character sheets, review, revise & accept them and then to finally begin. It's something that people do in their free time in between the rest of their daily activities. Pen-and-paper roleplays have everyone gathered in the same place and that's all people on focus on for hours on end so naturally the game moves faster.

But thank you for your feedback, regardless. I'm slowly starting to think that the "Play Your Avatar" game (which requires no setup time) could be a very good idea to let people jump straight into roleplaying as soon as they join.